Human Frailty
by Simple-Minded Idiot
Summary: The word had never been associated with him at all. He was foreign to it and its meaning. Until that one night when everything came spiraling down. Uzumaki Naruto was put to a halt.


Written for **Hedonistic Opportunist**. And I hope that it's alright that this fic is like this.

(Very sorry for presenting such a story when it's near Christmas or any other holiday that's of, er, importance in a nice way. Do forgive.)

* * *

Rape had been something that was foreign to Naruto. It was a word that he'd never associate to himself the meaning to. It was something far, far away from the world that he'd gotten himself used to. 

Naruto looked at the wall with blank eyes.

He didn't exactly know how all of it happened. The next thing he knew was that hands were _everywhere_ and after that, he began to feel nothing. He felt as if he'd fallen unconscious with his eyes open.

And when they – he didn't know what to call them and he didn't know their names and he was so confused about how the world worked already – were finished, a barrage of feelings assaulted him, asphyxiated him. It was overwhelming.

Naruto screamed and he was drowning in his own tears.

* * *

"Don't touch me." It was said with much vindictiveness that the girl quickly scampered away, leaving the books in her stead. 

Uzumaki Naruto bent down and got the books. He distinctly remembered having forgotten to get them from one of the classrooms that he'd taught in today. But still, in his mind, that was not enough reason for the girl to go and put her hand on his shoulder as if they were friends.

He had enough of friends and lovers and people in general.

He continued to walk towards the faculty room. Students immediately stepped out of his way.

Uzumaki-sensei was really... scary.

* * *

When Uzumaki Naruto first met Sasuke, it was around a week since school started. 

Uchiha Sasuke was a transfer student from abroad. He was Japanese. He just had insanely loaded parents that made him study abroad. As a result of that, he could barely speak Japanese. Though he could speak several versions of English and an innumerable amount of languages from Europe.

Naruto found it laughable that the boy seemed to know everything about the world except for the country he was born in.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke," the boy said when he was first presented to Naruto.

He really was unfamiliar to the language. A strong foreign accent lingered upon the Japanese words that had just been uttered.

"I... can speak English," Naruto said.

He tried his best to stifle his laughter, too.

Sasuke frowned and his eyebrows furrowed.

"Stop laughing at me," he said. "Your English isn't at all that commendable, you know."

Naruto knew that the boy was just being sour. His English was great. He was just trying not to laugh.

Naruto thought that he liked it better when the boy was speaking in the language he preferred. He had such a nice voice, too. Perhaps he sang?

"No, I don't sing, _sensei_," Sasuke said.

Naruto then remembered that he had an odd tendency to voice his thoughts out. Luckily, he wasn't embarrassed all that easily. Especially in front of boys who tried to act mature and defy their ages.

"Fiesty," Naruto said. "Gutsy. I don't like you."

"Well, neither do I."

"I'm your teacher. Your grade's on the line."

"I could care less. Now take me to class. You're being payed."

Naruto's face twisted into that of annoyance. He led the way to the classroom, all the while feeling rather irritated that there was a high possibility that the new introduction to his class was a troublemaker which would ruin his class' positively clean record.

But then, perhaps that was a nice kind of change.

* * *

Sasuke honestly wanted to get away from his classmates. They kept talking in English. Garbled English. He loathed it a lot. 

He didn't speak Japanese all that well, but at least he wasn't babbling.

As childish as it sounded, he wanted to go home. He wanted to go back to England. That was home. Japan wasn't home.

Sasuke felt empty.

But he couldn't go back home.

His father would be there.

His father didn't want him there. His father detested him.

But Sasuke loved his father. So he would stay away. Because he was really a good child. His mother had said so.

Before she went up and disappeared out of the face of the earth for a couple of weeks, only to return with divorce papers.

His life wasn't fucked up. Sasuke wasn't that conceited enough to think that nobody would ever understand or that he was the only person in the world suffering. Life just wasn't going all that well. It was better than most, but it wasn't one that he'd call perfect.

"Oi, Uchiha Sasuke," Naruto shouted. "Class is over, you should be outside, eating lunch."

Sasuke looked at his teacher, then at the whole classroom.

He was the only student left there.

He'd heard that students left the room as soon as they can whenever Naruto was the teacher. They said something about the blond being creepy. Or scary. They avoided the guy as much as they can.

"No," Sasuke said. "I have no desire to mingle with them. I would much rather be alone. What about you? Shouldn't you be in the faculty?"

Naruto snorted and took out his bentou out of nowhere.

"I eat lunch in my classroom," he said.

"Well, I eat lunch in my classroom, too," Sasuke said.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. A stubborn look dawned on his face.

"Whatever, kid," Naruto said.

It had been a while since he ate with someone.

Now, which "he" had thought that was up for others to decide.

* * *

"Looks like Haruno isn't our top anymore," Naruto said. 

Sakura looked scandalized. Naruto felt rather sorry for her. She had always been the top of her class, her batch since the beginning of time. Not to mention the one that had managed to steal her position had been quite surprising.

Report card day. Wonderful, wonderful.

Naruto, out of all of the teachers that had an advisory class, was probably the happiest teacher during this day. None of his students failed. Ever. He always received the cream of the cropping.

"Uchiha, congratulations," Naruto said. "Only a few more numbers before you get to reach Hyuuga's level."

Uchiha Sasuke was smart. But no one had expected him to be smarter than Haruno.

He was... he didn't at all seem to be the studious type. He was quiet and all, but he possessed a different kind of silence. The one that said that "make some nice and you die _now_." It was really rather unexpected that he'd come to surpass Sakura in the rankings.

Hyuuga Neji's record for the highest score ever attained in the history of the school. A ninety-nine in his overall grade. He had the same grade ever since he stepped inside the school. He had the same grade even before he entered their school.

The other teachers were giving Uchiha next semester to beat Hyuuga's score. It was really to see whether or not this new student was like a miracle child.

Sasuke snatched his report card from Naruto's hands. He walked back to his seat where he looked at his scores.

His brows knotted in discontentment.

Not good enough. That would be what his father would say.

"Cong-Congratulations, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said with a smile.

She sat behind him. She liked him. She was trying to be happy for him.

Sasuke would be touched if he had been anyone else in their class except himself. He forced himself to be polite. After all, he had just creamed her, academic-wise.

"Thank you," he said.

"Be more cheerful, Uchiha!" Naruto barked. "It's as if a relative of yours just died!"

"Sensei, that's mean of you!" Sakura exclaimed.

Haruno Sakura had grown up and Naruto, the teacher, hadn't even noticed.

* * *

"Responsible adults shouldn't be out drinking on a schoolday," Sasuke said. 

For the first time, he and Naruto met outside school. It was by accident, of course. Sasuke was going back home from grocery shopping and Naruto was trying to get himself wasted.

This had been the very day that the world straightened up for Naruto.

This had been enlightening for Sasuke. He didn't know that ramen stores offered liquor.

Sasuke had passed by Naruto and decided to put some sense into the man. After all, Naruto would be teaching them tomorrow. Sasuke would very much like to not handle a hung-over teacher.

"You talk as if you're my mother," Naruto muttered.

"I'm a student who wants to graduate out of a prestigious school," Sasuke countered. "It's perfectly normal for me to care about my teacher. I wouldn't want them out of the line."

Naruto merely nodded. Those words were practically Sasuke in a nutshell.

"Where's your house?" Sasuke asked. "I can take you there."

"You're already carrying a lot of stuff," Naruto said, a challenging tone brushing his voice. "I don't think that you'll be able to carry me – if ever I end up falling and stuff."

"I was going to call for a cab."

"My house is pretty far."

"I've got enough money."

"Oh. I forget. You're loaded."

"Are teachers supposed to be as crude as you when in front of their students?"

"Teachers are human, too. Now are you still taking me home or what?"

"I still don't know where you live."

"Near the vet shop beside that popular cafe."

"I live near there."

"So I've seen in your files. In that expensive penthouse. All alone, too. Don't you ever mind living alone? I do. I don't spend a lot of time in my house. Usually ended up crashing someone else's place."

"I'm not afraid."

"Who said anything about being afraid?"

"It would eventually lead to that," Sasuke said in a small voice.

He hailed for a cab. He helped Naruto out of the stool. The two of them got in. It was a silent ride. Very silent. Sasuke looked out of the window beside him and Naruto looked at his palms, most likely already lost in his thoughts. Most likely daydreaming. Except in the night.

The cab stopped in front of an apartment house. Sasuke payed the fare, all the while making Naruto promise to pay him back tomorrow or when they finally arrived at his doorstep, and then they got out of the vehicle.

Sasuke dropped his baggage beside a cabinet before he set out to help Naruto get to his own room.

"I wonder why you even wanted to get wasted today," Sasuke said as soon as he was inside Naruto's room.

"Ah, well, as you've heard before, shit happens," Naruto said.

"It's that bad enough that you'd want to take the risk of having liver cancer?"

"Yes."

Naruto was most unfortunate that Sasuke was unable to detect that he was already wading through deep waters.

"You're pretty shallow," Sasuke remarked, vaguely feeling disappointment; he had thought that Naruto had more in it than that. "To wallow in self-pity."

Naruto's teeth and hands clenched. Sasuke had no right. None at all.

"I wanted to die, Uchiha!" Naruto screamed. "I wanted to die! How shallow of a reason is that now? On this day... on this day a few years ago, I wanted to die!""

Suddenly, Sasuke was dealing with a drunk and sobbing Naruto. He put his arms around the man's neck and gave him what seemed to be a hug, but wasn't because Naruto wasn't responding at all. Kept on crying and crying.

"I... wanted to kill," Sasuke said softly. It seemed as if he was confessing his sins to a priest. "It's not the same thing, but it's composed of the same emotions to a certain degree."

"This'll... This won't go out of the four corners of this room," Naruto whispered after a while.

"Of course. And your room has approximately twelve corners, by the way, since it branches of into your kitchenette."

"Shut up, Sasuke, and let your teacher be."

* * *

Knocking down a bunch of students that had pissed him off. That was why Sasuke was serving detention. He really didn't know why he was undergoing detention. It was all self-defense. He wouldn't have been provoked to hospitalize them if they hadn't minded him. 

But, ah, well, he was not foreign to the fact that there was a lot of injustice in the world.

Sasuke opened the door to his classroom where Naruto was waiting for him.

Naruto had a scowl on his face.

Sasuke sat down in front of his teacher.

"Thanks to you, I won't be going home early," Naruto said.

"I do my best," Sasuke curtly replied. "And it isn't as if you do anything at your house anyway."

"Just one look inside makes you think as if you know me."

"Let's see..."

Sasuke had a mock-thoughtful look on his face. It pissed Naruto off a lot and it showed on his face to Sasuke's delight.

"The ramen cups littered all around should state that you're either lazy in food preparation or you're a miser," Sasuke started. "You have no computer. You only have a small TV and I doubt that that has cable because I didn't see any wires."

"That doesn't mean that I still don't do anything at home!" Naruto said.

"Sure, sure, plebeian. What am I supposed to do here for detention anyway?"

"Nothing. That's the problem."

Sasuke rose an eyebrow.

"You can't be serious," he said.

Naruto nodded. "Yes, I am. There's nothing to do here at all. You just have to keep quiet for an hour."

"I bet that I can. What about you, then, sensei?"

The haughty look fitted Sasuke very much. Naruto would very much want to wipe it off that face. But then, it wasn't as if Sasuke's statement was off them mark. Naruto had the tendency to babble eventually.

Naruto loathed the way Sasuke seemed to have everything controlled. It was very unnerving, especially since he, Naruto, was older. Some punk couldn't just have the situation in his hands. Especially Sasuke. Because there was just something about Sasuke that made Naruto want to show the kid who was in charge, who was in the lead.

"I'll have you know that I can be quiet, too!" Naruto exclaimed.

Sasuke no longer replied to him. Instead, the boy smirked. Naruto was aggravated even more so.

The game, it seemed, was already on.

Naruto made himself comfortable in his chair and started checking the papers from the quizzes that he'd given today. It would do no good to waste an hour of merely staring at the brat.

Soon, a crumpled ball of paper hit the top of his head. He glared at the piece of paper before he glared at Sasuke who was smirking yet again.

He opened the piece of paper. And, miraculously enough, resisted the urge to lunge at the kid. His job was on the line. He merely placed the paper in the trash can, gave Sasuke one more glare, and then went back to checking his papers.

A barrage of crumpled paper balls made their way to Naruto's desk after that.

Naruto never had a good temper. It was only inevitable that he'd slammed his hands on his table, made his way to Sasuke, then slammed his hands on Sasuke's desk. He glared at the boy.

"What the hell is your problem, Uchiha?" he asked.

"It seems that I can't become a basketball player as I was aiming for the trash bin," Sasuke said.

The devious glint in his eyes didn't cease to fade.

Naruto leaned in further more to make sure that Sasuke saw that he was truly irritated. But, not amazingly enough, it didn't faze Sasuke.

"I want to punch you very much right now," Naruto said.

"I'm not afraid," Sasuke stated.

From devious, his whole demeanor turned to daring. He put his hands on the table and leaned closer to Naruto who glared even more.

"Your laid-back attitude pisses me off a lot," he said.

"I'm not laid-back at all," Sasuke said. "You're just far too energetic."

Naruto didn't know whether or not to treat that as a compliment.

"I don't know why, but there's something about you that makes me hate you so," Naruto said.

"I can point out why I hate you," Sasuke said. "You're stupid, you're illogical, you're impulsive–"

"I get it!"

"You're also unnecessarily loud at times."

"Gah!"

"I don't get why we're even talking about this. It's already quite obvious that we deeply dislike each other. That should already be the end of the story. You aren't even required to like me as a teacher. Your salary won't go down because you hate me."

"I_know_ that–!"

"Yet why do you persist in telling me that you hate me? This is merely becoming a waste of our time. You can't force yourself to like someone you don't like at all."

"Who said that I didn't like you through and through?"

Sasuke looked at Naruto incredulously.

"I don't absolutely hate you," Naruto said.

"So then what do you call these spiteful feelings for me?" Sasuke asked.

"I just hate you. Doesn't mean that I hate your whole being. I admit that you have some good qualities."

"Admitting that someone has good qualities doesn't mean that you hate them any less. Hate is hate."

"Sometimes, things can be in the middle. Not hating and not liking."

"So then you feel neutral about me? I can't believe that."

"I don't feel neutral! Haven't you been listening to me? I hate you, but I don't hate _hate_ you! And then that means that I don't not like you. Not too much."

"Double negative."

"I don't care. I'm not even a Linguistics teacher."

"You're odd, Uzumaki." He made a move to rise.

And Naruto didn't at all move away.

Sasuke had never thought that he'd ever kiss, more or less, someone in his whole life. He'd never liked anyone that much, nor had he ever planned of getting married some day.

Naruto just was confused about not being scared. Because he usually would be. Because _things_ could happen again. Sasuke was an odd, odd boy.

It was truly hard to let go of the past.

Wide dark-colored eyes met equally wide blue eyes. They quickly pulled away from each other. Sasuke rubbed his lips with the sleeve of his blazer. Naruto still seemed to be in a state of shock.

* * *

Things like those often don't end just right there. Especially when it concerns Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. These things seem to get a life of their own and become something grander.

* * *

When Naruto opened the door, he hadn't expected Sasuke to be there, all dripping wet. 

"You'll get a cold," Naruto remarked.

"Don't you want to invite me inside?" Sasuke asked, the beginnings of a growl asserting itself in his voice.

Naruto shrugged, then ushered the boy inside. He gave his student a towel and made him wait in the hallway. When Naruto returned, he had a bundle of clothes in his hands. He, of course, gave this to Sasuke who thanked him. Or something along those lines.

"What makes you come here, anyway?" Naruto asked as soon as Sasuke, now as dry as possible, was sitting in front of him.

"Nothing much," Sasuke said. "I just wanted to."

Naruto grinned. "Isn't that cute? You have a crush on me!"

"Shut up, Naruto." A small blush was making its way on his face.

Naruto's grin grew broad. He kissed Sasuke. "It's surprising that you actually have a nice side to yourself."

"I'm going home," Sasuke said. He rose. He didn't need this teasing.

Naruto pulled him back into a sitting position.

"It's alright," Naruto said, his grin still prevalent, "I won't tease you anymore."

"Not too much," Sasuke spoke for him.

"You read my mind."

* * *

A rooftop meeting. It was a most dramatic finale. 

Sasuke shook his head of the thoughts running through his head. This would be no finale. It shouldn't be. It wouldn't be.

"Why did you call me out here?" Naruto asked.

"Yesterday," Sasuke started, "those weren't wounds gotten from your kitchen mishaps."

Naruto fingers the scars on his left arm. Long gashes. He was clumsy enough. He could greatly hurt himself while cutting the ingredients for his dinner. That was what he told people. And that was what the people believed.

But Sasuke was a smart boy. Sasuke knew him.

"What are you hinting at?" he asked.

"You willingly did it to yourself," Sasuke said.

Naruto chuckled.

"Really, Sasuke," he said. "If I was slashing myself, wouldn't I do it at a much more, well, unseen place?"

"The obvious is usually the hardest to notice," Sasuke said.

"If that was the case, why should you care? Certainly, me having suicidal tendencies won't affect your grade or my manner of teaching for the most part."

Sasuke was silent. He bit the inside of his cheek. He would've fidgeted if he had grown accustomed to the gesture, but he hadn't.

"I'd care," Sasuke said after a while, "because it would affect my studies. For some inexplicable way, I _know_ that I'll be unable to sleep properly, knowing that you're hacking off your life bit by bit."

"You shouldn't care, Sasuke," Naruto said gently. "Not about me."

"If you didn't want me to care then you shouldn't... you shouldn't have tangled yourself in my life. You shouldn't have..." He couldn't continue. It seemed so unmanly for him to give out a reason like that.

"Kissed you?"

"Yes, that!" He was frustrated. Why was Naruto taking all of this so_lightly_? It was an insult. A grave one. "And did it frequently, too!"

"It shouldn't matter. It didn't to me. You'd also been asking for it. All the time. After all, how would you explain you hovering around my house almost every day."

"You can't say that! I know that it matters to you, too!"

"How can you prove that? You're not me. You can't possibly know what I feel. Not exactly. To some extent, you might not be, but never as a whole."

"I believe that it matters to you."

Naruto snorted at that.

"Believe, Sasuke?" he asked. The incredulous tone in his voice was not lost to Sasuke's ears. "In all of these months that you've been my student, I have never ever thought that you'd ever tag the word_believe_ to yourself."

"Well, I am now, so get used to it!"

"You're blinding yourself to your self-made reality."

"I'm fine. I'm fine with being blind if that means that I'll be happy."

Sasuke shut his eyes tightly. He bit the insides of his cheeks again. He couldn't believe himself at all. The words that he'd spoken didn't at all seem like him.

"Sasuke," Naruto said.

Sasuke had never thought that his name could sound so nice.

"Look at me for a while," Naruto continued.

Sasuke opened his eyes again and looked at Naruto. Tears were, oddly enough, forming in his eyes. Naruto couldn't help but to want to cry, too. They must've looked quite silly. The two of them were far from each other. They needed to really project their voices in order for each other to hear their words. Despite all of that, they still remained rooted to their spots. Naruto was still leaning on the rooftop railings and Sasuke was standing beside the doorway.

They were losing themselves.

"Let's say that I do care," Naruto started slowly, "what would that do to change things then?"

Naruto hated growing up.

"It might not change things at all – we'll still end up being caught in the past," Sasuke said, "but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't mean anything."

"Why do you persist on me not dying?" Naruto asked. "Why do you really care so much? Why should I care that you care about my well-being? You haven't met me for long, Uchiha Sasuke, yet why do you already care to that extent? Even more than saving me from the pits of limbo."

Nobody could love as easily as that. It was impossible.

Naruto's eyes clouded with doubt.

Sasuke was an odd student, for sure. But Sasuke was smart, really smart. He wouldn't make rash decisions. He wouldn't allow himself to be enamored with someone that easily.

"And that's because... that's because you're the only one I have right now!" Sasuke said. "I know that I might not end up being as gentle or sympathetic as you need me to be. I know that I'll probably be destructive for someone like you, but I like you. That should be enough, shouldn't it?

"I'll do my best. I'll try not to be mean. I'll try to understand. But... just... just don't be like me because that's not really you and I'm selfish that way. And... and you! Don't you say that I'm too young or that if we indulge in a relationship, you'll get fired. Don't."

Naruto suddenly smiled. Sasuke was such a good kid.

The world seemed to stop for Sasuke. It was the first time that he'd seen his teacher _smile_, and what a lovely thing it was.

"I think that you've become the only person that I have right now, too, Sasuke," Naruto said. "I've come to like you. And I feel guilty because I think that I'll just make you worse. That I'll soil you even more than your father or your brother has. We both know that I can do more damage to you than you can ever do to me."

And then Sasuke cried for the first time in eight years. "You could've told me that you were crying all this time, you liar!"

Five months and two days. They had known each other until the world came to a stop for Uzumaki Naruto.

* * *

"What happened to Uzumaki-san then? Where is he right now?" one of the girls asked. 

She was already crying.

"He killed himself," Sasuke answered, "in front me right after that. He jumped from the rooftop."

It was homeroom and his students wanted to know if there had been a time when he'd fallen in love, too, seeing as he was telling his class to never mind about love and think about their studies even more.

"He's... I mean... sensei... he really killed himself?" another girl asked.

"He attempted suicide. He got hospitalized," Sasuke said. "He still is in the hospital. He isn't alive anymore."

"He's a ghost?" a boy asked.

"He just _is_."

* * *

Sasuke remembers a gentle face with blank blue eyes. Uzumaki Naruto has long ago ceased to live for him. Six years and counting. 

Uzumaki Naruto is in a coma.

Sasuke lays his head on Naruto's hospital bed. He clutches Naruto's hospital clothes. He can feel the warmth coming from Naruto. It isn't enough.

It isn't as if Naruto is Jesus. It isn't as if he can revive himself just like that.

* * *

It's cut short just like that. I have this feeling that there's just something lacking in there -- something really lacking. It's a feeling that makes me want to expand more on the idea. But the only problem is that I don't _know_ how. 


End file.
